... like snuff at a wake - part 89.

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Today's Times of London (Irish Edition) reports on some strange goings-on in the ivy clad palace of higher education resting on the southern bank of the River Shannon.

Mark Tighe reports that:

The University gave two managers unauthorised severance payments totalling 451,000 before hiring the mens consultancy firms at a cost of 382,000.

One of those to receive a payment was John Fox, director of finance at Limerick University until he left in 2012 who received in the region of 220,000 without the Department of Education being notified.

Fox set up Cornaroya Consulting Services where he and his wife Dolores each hold half of the companys shares.
Limerick University paid Cornaroya 189,000 between 2012 and 2015.

Also in 2012, UL agreed a severance deal of about 220,000 with Dermot Coughlan, its director of lifelong learning and research.

UL subsequently told the Office of the Comptroller & Auditor General that the severance deals were based on a 2010 HSE scheme. However, the office found the payments were significantly at variance.

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I used to park at UL when I attended a course. It was three euro per bay. You paid at a machine on the way out. No receipts, which made it difficult to reclaim the expense.
That car park amounted to a whole lot of cash every week.
I often wondered...

"We’re entering an era of outsourced censorship, where the terrible things once done by the state are now done by Silicon Valley suits."

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There's an investigation into the university at the moment. Some whistleblowers were offered hush money and didn't take it. They're out of work at the moment. Claims being put in for new kitchens and holidays and all sorts. Yet they have young lecturers there who are not given permanent jobs and have to claim SW. And don't forget the time they paid for three presidential salaries to the incoming the present and the past President. We didn't hear much about that and whether it was sorted. I think there was some excuse given and that was the end of that.

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I have seen some mention of an investigation going on there. Whether it is a classic Irish investigation where a report will eventually be written which will use only titles but no names and outlining that while nothing can be done about what happened lessons must be learned for the future...

Or whether it will be a real investigation and the question of cui bono? will be thoroughly researched.

Usually when large sums of money are handed out on the quiet there is something underlying it which also needs to be investigated.

Also of course there is the possibility that those who arrange such deals may benefit in some way from the arrangement so that would have to be looked at as well.

If the UL is in receipt of public money from the Dept of Education in any way then of course the university loses the right to deal with the matter internally.

Also such sums would have to be signed off by senior leadership in the University so it could well be scalps all the way around.

What I have heard about the issues there is not from the Irish media, interestingly, but from media outside Ireland so this one is making international waves across the education sector outside Ireland already.

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Among the claims were that certain senior staff received mileage payments for journeys between their homes and the university, along with expenses claims for irregular items, including the delivery of a fitted kitchen for one relocating staff member, having been approved.

If the overburdened middle class were to discover that they're financing a slush fund for well-placed university staff (allegedly), there'd be hell to pay.

TWENTY-EIGHT OF Ireland’s top third-level institutions took in a combined €396 million in registration fees in the last academic year.
This is more than double the €185 million that pertained among the same institutions six years previously, illustrating the increased burden being placed on students and their families.

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One or more influential senior staff years ago started feathering their own nest at the expense of University budgets.

Over time this expanded to a small circle around said person. Over more time the circle of people who had to be on the inside and paid off to say nothing grew larger until in the end a level of profligacy with university funds was reached which fell into public view and could no longer be contained.

I'm betting that whatever comes out of the enquiries that the above will pretty much cover what has happened.

Same as with charities, quangos, and any other body handling public and private money where there is a person with unquestioned authority in place who works hard at never being challenged.